Helping Canadians with Personal Finance Since 2006

Federal Politician Salaries – Higher Than You Think

When I ponder about politician salaries, I tend to think very middle of the road, middle class type wages. However, this is not the case as disclosed by a recent issue of MoneySense Magazine. It appears that even newly elected federal MPs garner a six figure salary which doesn’t include the reduced term gold plated defined benefit pension that they are offered. Their salaries are very generous and perhaps a slight conflict of interest when they can vote themselves a pay raise.

Here are some of the salaries of politicians at a federal level (via MoneySense) not including travel, housing, office allowances:

As I mentioned before, the salaries indicated above do not include perhaps the most lucrative defined benefit pension available in Canada. Typically, a government worker (non political) needs to serve around 30 years before they qualify for the maximum benefits under a DBP. Not members of parliament however, they can start receiving a very generous pension after a short term which is then adjusted for inflation every year. Here are the stats from the MoneySense article:

To qualify for a pension, you have to serve as a member of Parliament for a mere six years. A backbencher with six years on the job who retired at the end of this year would receive an annual pension of $27,213 once he or she turns 55…

… If the MP sticks around for another four years, his or her pension hits $43,355 a year.

… For you and me to receive and equivalent payout in retirement we would have to put $80,000 into our RRSPs each year for 10 years.

..The average MP who is eligible to collect a parliamentary pension takes in a very comfortable $49,985 a year. In fact, there are 70 ex-MPs who collect more than $70,000 a year.

Looks like a career in federal politics can be fairly lucrative! What are your thoughts? It seems that if you include the lucrative pension and other benefits that MPs are offered, they are paid in the same salary range as Doctors!

50 Comments

Philip in North Yorkon October 5, 2009 at 8:21 am

Does anyone know what happen to the MP’s pension if the MP works in another position after retirement? I remember that there must be 5 years of cooling period before getting new paycheques, but I know nothing else.

I don’t mind paying six figures to working MPs because they probably need more than their salary to hold their job in House of Commons anyway. Senate is a different story.

@ Philip: “I don’t mind paying six figures to working MPs because they probably need more than their salary to hold their job in House of Commons anyway.”

Excuse me? I ask that you define/explain your position. Thank-you.

Personally, I have a huge hate-on for politicians. Why? Because I work in close proximity with them. Perhaps it is because I live in B.C. where politicians are…let’s put it this way, only Quebec has had more political “scandals”. The stuff (said politely) that I witness/have witnessed is disgusting, vulgar, childish, greedy, inept, etc. — I guess all things politico.

I work for the government (aka public servant). The new B.C. budget came out and one of the points was that no public servant was going to get pay increases for a year. You know what happened? The very day BEFORE the budget came out, I got an almost 8% raise.
Thanks, but what a weasle-y move! And that is a mere one of a lengthy, lengthy list.

Do I think MP etc. should make this kind of money? Perhaps (with a very heavy leaning towards ‘no’). Do I think provincial politicians should make what they do? NO.

(I won’t even start on the B.C. union situation!)

A while ago I wrote (shamefully on some other blog!) a comparison of the PM’s salary/perks versus that of the US Prez’ salary/perks. Based purely on the size of each countries tax-payer base, our PM (and thus MPs) is grossly over-paid.

The salaries look fine to me, but added to the expenses and benefits, yeah, it’s awfully big bucks. Occasionally you read about ex-politicians having cars and bodyguards long after the fact and wonder what the total cost of all those random perqs are. Interestingly Canada always gets trotted out as an example in Irish media when speaking about the cost of politician’s salaries – here there is far less “politicians per capita” than back home in Ireland.

That said, as with many high-paying jobs, you couldn’t pay me enough to do it!

These figures are somewhat higher than what I remember seeing/hearing a few years ago, but it may have changed a bit.

I don’t think they’re outlandish. A back bencher MP gets about 50% more than a well established (and tenured) academic in a good professional department (yes, significantly more than in the humanities, I’m afraid) and comparable to starting salary at a top firm for an MBA. A minister / leader gets significantly less than a business leader or top lawyer who we would consider his peer.

The big change in pension for those MPs who essentially get elected to a 2nd term seems a bit of an excessive bit of pork, but pales compared to bonuses and options in the private sector. The expenses and living allowances I don’t count – people at this level in the private sector can easily spend more on reimbursed expenses than their salary.

“We should pay them more – much more, in the millions I would say. At least this way we would attract top talent into the game instead of having this talent go to become CEOs/Lawyers/whatever else.”

That argument has been used forever. It was used here (BC) last time all the big-wigs got their 25% raise. It’s rubbish. Why do you think politics and bureaucracy operate the way they do? It’s because the “top talent”/”best and brightest” are NOT attracted to “the game” of politics and are, obviously, NOT running things. People who are greedy for power and attention go into politics and STAY in politics (remember what a politicians TRUE job description is: to seek, gain, and maintain power. Period.).

Top talent, those who want to create and innovate, will, if they do happen into government, very soon depart. Why? Because the very nature of government does not allow “top talent” to flourish. Ergo, they either repudiate and leave back into the private sector or they succumb and conform. Either way, government does not attract, nor keep, “top talent” — no matter the pay cheque.

Another point – being a politician raises your public profile in a way that may facilitate certain followon employment but makes other quite challenging. A firm I know passed on an excellent young ex-politician employment candidate just because of the baggage he would have brought to the position. Combined with the relative insecurity of the position (who knows if you’ll be reelected) some form of long-term pension as a future cushion does not seem out of line. If you want capable people to take this on, many of them (not all – I’m not trying to claim there aren’t oodles of tremendously capable people out there being paid far less than 6 figures!) will be giving up on a fairly lucrative existing career trajectory for something very different and risky.

Scott, you seem like another bitter public servant. I fully agree with paying our politicians well. They work hard for their money and it is almost always a thankless job. Downplaying our Prime Minister’s role in comparison to that of the US Presidency is insulting and quite frankly unpatriotic. His job is equally important regardless of the population of Canada. Maybe we should pay him based upon sq/km or litres of fresh water/per capita? In that case he would earn much more than Obama. It has been said a million times before – if you (Scott) think you can do a better job then we will look forward to your upcoming campaign. You might even get my vote (as long as you are a Liberal…lol).

I don’t know anyone who has turned down being a politician because of money. I do know people who have turned down become a judge because they couldn’t afford the pay cut. I would assume that this happens a lot in politics.

David Miller, the Toronto mayor, appears to make $163,016.64 and he is in charge of an 8.7 billion dollar budget. I don’t think that the salary is out of line with the responsibility.

I think we can all agree that the MPs have a very good salary and a lot of perks. However, I’m not seeing anyone take into account the personal cost of getting there in the first place.

Politicians spend a LOT of personal money just to run, it’s not 100% funded by the party. Once reason that most MPs/MPPs are lawyers is because the cost to run is so immense that you need to be upper-class income in the first place just to afford to run.

Since these salaries seem high, but are WAY less than these individuals make in the private sector, we are already missing “top talent”. If we reduced the salaries even further, we’d probably get even more losers.

Keep in mind politics is a thankless job for the most part, at any time a good chunk of the country hates you.

As per the Moneysense article, the champion of poor NDP Supremo Mr. Layton is drawing Pensions from Ryerson University, as former staff and Toronto City council, as former City Councilar, apart from his $200,000 plus Paycheque as NDP leader in Parliament. Chip in his wife’s Pay of another $150,000 as MP. More than a very decent income for a family, by any standard. Still they are renting their house to University students, as per the article. I don’t have any words for these cheapstakes.

Don’t forget MPs have to maintain a residence in BOTH their riding AND Ottawa. The extra cash for backbenchers adjusts for this expense. I always love hearing people who don’t make a lot of money complain about people who do.

Hate for politicians aside, let me ask another question: Do you want an unqualified dufus running for political office? The old adage “you get what you pay for” applies here.

If politicians get crummy compensation we get crummy politicians because those who are qualified won’t touch it. The salaries of the CEO of Royal Bank and BCE are both over $1 million, do you think the leader of a country should be paid on pay?

I suspect that if we paid the PM $1 million and the other MP’s in the neighbourhood of $500,000 we would probably get much better government and a much leaner county.

I have no problem with these salaries. We want well-qualified individuals who would serve the public good to stand for public office. Being an MP requires long hours, often thankless service, has little security, and, for most MPs, long days away from family and loved ones. The remuneration ought to at least be attractive enough for qualified individuals of all political stripes to make the sacrifices necessary to make a run for Parliament.

If better Governance is related to the remuniration, the government shouldn’t have cleared all the deficits back in ninties, when MPs were getting paid around $70k. The pay should be performance driven. One shouldn’t be coming to Public Service only to earn Money. The Pension benefits for MPs are well compansated and should take away their financial worries for the future, but still they keep on increasing their salaries. Please read John Bogle’s latest book “Enough” and someone make these people understand how to be happy with Enough without much greed.

Obviously FrugalTrader has issue with MP’s salaries and their generous accelerated pension package as he wrote the article stating such. Funny considering your own wife is a government worker with one of those same gold plated pensions. My wife has one also. The key difference is the time it takes to get full pension. I get it. However it’s all relative and I’m not sure what message this post achieves other than to complain about what government workers get paid. Maybe a post showing the widening gap between what government versus private sector workers get paid\ benefits would be an eye opener for sure.

Finance Addict, the post was meant to generate discussion on what readers thought of the high pay of federal politicians. I personally have no real issue with the high pay, it’s simply much higher than I expected.

There is another consideration that hasn’t been mentioned. If Politician salaries are too low they are FAR more likely to accept kickbacks and bribes to make up for the low salary. I realize kickbacks and bribes are already happening but a lower salary would probably make the problem even worse.

As fof the pension, I believe the government kicks in approximately $2.5 – $3 for every $1 the member contributes to the plan. My plan contributes $1 for $1 at work. so it is a lucrative benefit for them, but I don’t think it is out of line with executive pension plans across the country(lets not forget they are the executives of the government of Canada).

My MP is also a secretary of State + a retired F16 pilot with 30 years service + anD he’s an ex- financial services representative.
+He gets to fly to Afghanistan whenever .
Spent the last few Christmases there.

” If Politician salaries are too low they are FAR more likely to accept kickbacks and bribes to make up for the low salary.”

LOL, why do you think corporations run countries not governments..for this exact same reason, these guys get payed off in so many ways, regardless of salary. It makes no difference. The kickbacks are the reason most politicians are in the biz, when big corporations throw money at you , you do what they tell you..hence why consumers are constantly gouged and nothing ever gets done about it.

Thank you for giving us colourful descriptions about politicians. I do not like politicians, but I do not hate them as you. I view political power as a sewage treatment plant; it is a necessary evil, but those who work in there are stinky. That is why I distant myself from them, and low six-figure salary and $100,000+ /yr perks are acceptable to me. The politics is not a job for gentle people.

Back to the salary number, I have little knowledge about politics, but being a MP seems a financially poor decision. Advertising, operating office, and some research activities wouldn’t be cheap. The cost will be covered by reimbursement, and donation but it would not be completely free. I never heard any politician became rich without kickbacks, bribe, and pension.

For comparing Canada and U.S., how can we judge whether Canadian politicians overpaid or not? Maybe, U.S. politicians are grossly underpaid financially for their posts.

I read the article and I can’t recall whether they mentioned the size of budgets and departments that a jr. cabinet minister would over-see.

If they didn’t tell you, the figure really has no context. Senior level civil servants pull down a good salary but many of them supervise much larger departments and budgets than their private sector counterparts.

As for the pensions, the better way to address the issue is pay more salary and offer a very small pension and impose term limits. That way, at least politicans know this is not a life-long job and they are acting as trustee for the public for short periods of time. The issue with large pensions is that it institutionalizes being a politician as a life-long job and your mandate no one is to serve the public but to get re-elected again. All institutions require fresh blood and new insight.

These salaries do seem rather excessive. These jobs are not so demanding that they deserve that. On the flipside, if they don’t make this much, qualified people may go work in business management or other careers instead. So there has to be some incentive for the most qualified people to become politicians. It becomes a bit of a bidding war between government and businesses.

No surprise here but it’s like that in virtually every democracy. Bear in mind that some individuals who successfully run for office would have to take a pay cut compared to what they’ll get paid in a private sector job. However, the vast majority of politicians are “jobnicks”; few are doctors or lawyers or bankers who would earn a very lucrative salary in the private sector. Most of them are career bullshiters who only want to get elected for the pay and perks. Our political system as a whole is flawed and plagued with conflicts of interest.

I don’t think the salaries are outlandish at all, but I don’t like the size of the pensions and how little time in office it takes to ‘earn’ such a lucrative pension.

I believe it would have been helpful if there was an indication as to how long each MP had held public office before landing a job in parliament. I would guess it takes quite a long time for most politicians to work there way up the ladder (starting perhaps with school boards, municipal politician, maybe even provincial politician).

Backbenchers earn too much, but other than that, it seems quite reasonable considering the responsibilities involved.

I personally don’t know any politicians so I could venture a guess as to how many deliver real value but it appears that, just as in the private sector, there are people who deliver more value than they are paid – and there are others on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Scott, your theory that one’s abilities should be measured by the wording on a diploma is very outdated. One’s education level is little more than a door opener when interviewing for a new position and has nothing to do with one’s true abilities. Many of the people that I went to graduate school with can barely feed themselves. And most of Canada’s richest entrepreneurs do not even have a high school diploma. It is 2009…not 1972.

1) How many non-degreed entrepreneurs work for the government?
My guess is an absolute zero. I’m not talking about private citizens on contract, but a Mon-Fri 35-hour work week stooge. Government simply does not provide a livable environment for the entrepreneurial spirit.

2) During the last round of B.C. provinicial gov’t top-tier raises, good ol’ preimier Gordo hired an “indiependent” firm to write a public report to support the raises. First off, the idea is just so wrong. Secondly, the report stated that “comparable” wages were seen in the private sector. Again, the example of my MLA, earning 213% more than someone in the private sector with “comparable” pedigree. Basically the joke of a report was just more waste of tax dollars.

3) As Tax Guy posted (#15): “If politicians get crummy compensation we get crummy politicians because those who are qualified won’t touch it. The salaries of the CEO of Royal Bank and BCE are both over $1 million, do you think the leader of a country should be paid on pay?”

Think the CEO of RBC or BCE have ONLY a Bachelor of Art degree? I doubt it. Try to get into RBC or BCE management with “not even a high school diploma”. Good luck. As well, those are private sector companies, their entire goal is to make as much money as possible. The perceived role of a politician is quite different. I’m not sure how you correlate the two.

In the end, it really is a futile and moot argument. Government has been a corrupt, self-serving entity ever since its birth. We might as well face the fact that an incredibly small (and most likely shrinking) degree of society enters into politics with the sole purpose of serving without ulterior motives (money, power, etc.).

Scott I think that you are missing the point and examining this on a micro level. The bigger picture tells us that politics is a thankless job and therefore a premium must be paid to all politicians.

Your first point is completely off topic. We are not discussing public servants but rather elected officials. Many of Canada’s elected officials are self made millionaires who enter politics for reasons other than money. Perhaps power is one reason but in today’s political climate there is very little power to be had. Again, I’ll remind you that this is 2009 and all politicians are subject to new world media scrutiny (www, blogs, 24/7 TV, etc). So yes there is still power that comes with the job…but the abuse of power that was once a huge perk has gone the way of the VCR.

Your second point sounds like sour grapes. Would you prefer that an internal firm did the study? $98K is a very good salary but it is not going to make you rich. In fact at $98K the very government that pays you this salary gets most of it back through various forms of taxation

And your last point…comparing someone with a B.A. in the private sector to a politician with a B.A. is like comparing a college professor with a PhD in English literature to a MD with PhD in neuroscience. Obviously they would not be paid the same simply because they hold the same ‘level’ of education.

The good news is that we rehire our politicians every 4 years so if you think that you could do better without being attached by the generous salary or the lure of power then I look very much forward to your campaign. Until then, I will continue to support our politicians and will save bashing them for times when they actually deserve it. Earning a decent wage is not one of those things.

Ben, obviously this is an issue that will always be contested, and without resolution. I respect Frugal Trader and his website too much to turn this into a slap fight, of sorts. We shall continue to agree to disagree.

Perhaps we should start using politician pay raises as the true measure of inflation. Just an idea.

(As an aside, CPI ’00-’10 is +2.07% annually. But much more, of course, if you actually include all the stuff you use: fruit, vegetables, gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, mortgage interest, inter-city transportation, and taxes.)

“Look fine to me”? Ya, they look real fine all right. Especially to the parasitic politicians. While the average Canadian brings home slightly more than $39,000 a year, these SOBs live like kings off the backs of us peasants. How could any decent person live with themselves?

What I can say, just from working around provincial politicos the last few years, is that yes, quite frankly, most politicians are indeed decent people — when they very first enter the arena. The longer they stay, the more disconnect there is between their view on what reality is and what reality actually is.

Example in case: annual 10% pay raise.

But, we all know politics and politicians have been corrupt since the very first vote way back in days of yore. Accept it and move on.

There is about 5 or 6 staff at the company whom I work for that are under 30 years of age and they make over $250k a year. They are smart, hard working individuals. They deserve their pay, I make just over 175k at the same company. We laugh at how little some people make, but they just don’t deserve it, they don’t get things right, and when your dealing with billions, mistakes don’t fly. We consider ourselves like athletes, only a small percentage ever go pro and make the NHL, NBA, NFL, or MLB. Those that do, get paid well. It is the same with being a politician. Most of you people would crack under the pressure.

As far as those politicians are concerned, they deserve every penny they make. I would NOT do their job and I make the same coin. Just remember people, money isn’t everything, lifestyle is. Nobody dies wishing they had worked more.

Trevor, give me a break! Give me a job in politics any day, I will work at it a for a couple years making 250k a year, do a couple billion dollar oopsies and take a walk with a 2+ million dollar severance. Now thats a great lifestyle choice! And if I make it to 4 years I make 45k a year in pension! Working hard! LOL. I only make about 90 a year right now, and I can tell ya, I work waaaaay less that I did making half that. You know and I know, when you start making good money, you forget about how easily it comes. I used to work 80+ hours a week to scrounge up 50k, now my arse gets sore from sitting on it making almost double. Rough times. Has everyone forgotten about expense accounts, car allowances, travel allowances, kickbacks, etc? Might as well give the waitress $60/hour and forget about what they make on the side. You can take an elects salary and probably triple it when it comes down to the nitty gritty, so YES THEY MAKE WAY TOO MUCH! Last time I checked I had to pay my own gas to get to work.

Yes they get paid far too much and those who think that this is to get the “right” people in place that would be a failed statement in logic. If you want people who care about making money and living nice fatcat lives sure done. The right people who should be in place aren’t those people the people who just want to make Canada better help people and the environment should be in place most of those people would do the job for way less espcially considering the expense accounts in place for poloticians. Lawyers, CEO, Realestate moguls these are the people in place they are not there for Canada or you look at thier jobs they are there for them and to make money. This attacts the wrong kind of people.

The salaries are a joke. I don’t want my province or country run by people who are doing it for money. Greed should have no place in politics. We need people who are doing it for the right reasons because that’s their passion. They want to see a good development that benefits everyone. Right now it’s at the point where you don’t even know what greedy liar to vote for because non of them care about you or your future anyways. Why we tolerate it as a society? I have no idea. We need a change though. The whole planet does.

The basic problem with politics is using the same system for over a hundred years. It’s outdated and we can have a far more democratic country if we redesign power distribution. The fight over power is just the “snowball” thats been building for years. George Washinton said that politcal parties will be the fall of democracy. Thats what we are seeing now. This the only outcome when less than 0.01% of our people make all the rules for everyone else. It’s too easy to make a grab for power. I am a Canadian small business owner who will never vote in another election that means nothing. People who believe that casting a vote once or twice a year makes them equal with the lords of the manor are diluting themselves. They are sheep. If Canada is ever to be truly free we must all be equal in reality not just on paper or at election time. I am a grad of computer programming and I know for a fact it would be possible to have the first true democracy. It would just take designing hand-held PDA’s to give every person their own vote on every social issue. I say every social issue because obviously financial issues can not be decided by voting, the average Canadian wouldn’t be quafied to make those types of decisions. So keep the politians, just redefine their role in Canadian politics. You have the power to restore Canada to a democracy free of these whinny little babies and their need to be on top of the pile. If their on the top, guess who they are standing on. If you truly want a Canada we can be proud of you’ll put an end to this, and the only way to do that is to make us all equal for the first time in history. If things stay the same I denouce the government of Canada as my government and my family will never partisipate in any election to keep the masses queit. I am tired of paying for their lifestyles with nothing in return. I love Canada like my grandparents taught me to, I hate people who tell us what we need and how much we owe for it. Please make them work for us not us working for them. Anyone else tired of this? This is the first time we have the tech. to give us all a voice. Thinking about it the possibilities for Canada is excitng. If nothing changes to make us eqaul Canadians I’m telling everyone to vote “none of the above” to the Canadian dictatorship (government).
Here are just a couple of blogs I pulled off the internet about our over paid government. This first one is in response to the riots in Toronto during the multi billion dollar party. (G20):

The police are the group incharge. They tell us what we can and can’t do and if you don’t listen they declare you unlawful and arrest you. Does anyone think it is proper that they can just change the laws to suit their needs? If you do, you are either a realitive of a cop or your part of the cattle, moooo. During their training police are taught to TAKE CONTROL of any situation. I know I’m diluted but I thought that people who work for us should be under our control. (and not make 2-5 times more than us, but mostly thats the politians of the government.) I lived in Calgary a few years ago and my roommates daughter had accidentally dialed 911. I called them back and told them it was a mistake but they had to send a car anyway, which I understand. When the cop arrived he walked right in, and with his hand on his gun the whole time he began to question myself and my roommate who confirmed the mistake. He then asked if there was anyone else in the house, I said my 7 year old was home from school, sick in bed. The cop said “do you mind if I talk to her”, I said yes because she’s sick and sleeping. Now the cop didn’t have control of the situation so his atitude changed and he unclipped his gun holster and said ” I don’t need your permission, that was just being polite”. He commanded me to walk in front of him to my daughters room where he went in and woke her up. Dazed and confused she confirmed what I said and the part I love is my seven year old daughter told him to get out of her room before she pukes on him. After 30mins of his crap and commandments I said “all of this over a mistake that any monkey could have seen in five minutes, please get the **** out of my house”. The cop said “how would you like to be arrested” I said “for what” he said “it’s a long way to the station, Ill think of something”. I said “do you know your a public servant and you work for me.” He said “this is my country, I tell YOU what, where and when, You just live here.”Democracy in Canada died for me that day. Since then my parents, grand parents, friends, just about everyone has simular stories. Combine those stories with the complete ignorance and over payment of politicians and we have a country that doesn’t even vote.(unless its to stop the HST) In Toronto, it was my story times ten thousand. First we need politians with their salaries based on the canadian national average. This will eliminate the money grubers, then we need to get rid of the power mongers, police and politians alike.(not all of them just the power mongers). Then we will have for the first time in Canada – A DEMOCRACY. Till then we are all sheep and cattle who better do what we are told or the government will send the police to arrest us or taser us 13sec after they arrive like at the Vancouver airport. At least China tells you they are a dictaorship, Canada is a dictatorship cloaked as a democracy.

The next blog is from someone looking to be involved but doesn’t see the point.:

NONE OF THE ABOVE
The liberals do what they want how they want to do it, then say its what we want.The NDP are going to raise the min. wage which means in a time when its the hardest for small businesses they are going to have to lay-off 10%-20% of their employees.Both are a case of spoon fed people who have never lived the same type of lives as the rest of us. They do not understand our low to middle income lives. The green party is the opposite, no money, no experience. The conservatives are a little of each depending on which of us they are trying to pander to, at a self premium everytime.

It took me less than a minute to find these and there are literally thousands more. I want people in politics who want to make change not money. I won’t be voting until someone says that he/she will base their salary on the the canadian national average or provincial average for provincial elections. This way we will get the right people in charge and if they want more money they can enable us to make more money.

P.S. I have sent a detailed plan to give us all a vote on social issues to every party and none have responded which is a shame because they all claim to want to make canada the best country in the world but none are willing to give us back any power to do it. We could demand it but that would require a level of co-operation like never before and the politicians know it. They aren’t scared, they know as long as they give us a choice between them the sheep and cattle are going to fall in line. But every election less and less people choose to go to the slaughter house (vote). Someday there will be someone who is willing to say “I’m only going to make as much as the people I represent, I dare my running mates to do the same”. That will be the person that can give us the first democracy in Canada.

The thing that upsets me is that they can collect a pension at 55 with as little as 6 years, and I can’t even get the money I paid into my own CPP from them when I need it. I’m about to lose everything I’ve worked all my life for, and the government could care less… red tape, fill this out, fill that out, it takes months; well by then I’ll be homeless.
If that happened to one of them, they would certainly fix it in a hurry…
Does anyone know of a politician that ended up homeless?

You know what makes me mad, it’s not what they earn, it’s not even their pensions, It is the fact that they can give themselves a raise, and we’ve heard it happen a couple times, on top of that when ever shit hits the fan money wise, it’s taken out on public workers, like teachers for instance, and don’t get me wrong, I can remember way back in the 90’s when Mike Harris effectively cut welfare in half, so a single person went from getting like a grand to about 5 hundred, which has both good and bad reactions obviously, But at the same time they also cut the amount that a person on Disability get’s also, which was fine also, but I believe they cut both back to much, for one thing an adult who let’s say has lost their job or something and has to go to welfare for a little while, well I’ll tell you what, that adult has pretty much lost their whole life, an adult on welfare is expected to live for one month on 520 dollars, that’s a single adult, jesus you can’t even rent a room at a rooming place in my town for less than 400 dollars, that leaves that person with 100 dollars for that month, if they’re lucky, 25 dollars a week for groceries and what ever else they will need, soap, toilet paper, what have you, If you are lucky enough to have a family member rent you a room for the 320 dollars a month welfare will give you for rent each month, you gotta keep quiet about it because if they find out you live with family they might just cut your cheque in half, dont get me wrong here, I don’t agree with people just being on welfare because they don’t want to work, but how about when you Can’t work? well ODSP, (ontario disability) is only slightly better, a single person on disability get’s about 900 a month, which will get you a room sure, or you can try and find a cheap one room apartment, for 700 a month, maybe more, and the one thing that pisses me off more than most, is when the government votes to give themselves a raise, it’s alway’s a decent number, but for someone on disability they may get a raise once every couple of years, and I shit you not, that raise is 1% per month, so you might get 9 bucks extra, I’m not saying people on welfare should live high on the hog, but I am saying that the PM and MP’s shouldn’t be giving themselves a nice little raise while the people at the bottom get SHIT, I think this stuff should go from the bottom to the top, let the poor have a little more for christ sake, most people on welfare dont want to be on welfare, and I can tell you that people on Disability, would rather be working and making a decent wage, I’m not saying let’s make them rich but I am saying let’s at least make them comfortable somewhat